War letters full of love…
[Article by Silvia Lodi Pasini] – MORIMONDO, 17 February 2016 – Talking about love in war. These are letters that go straight to the heart, those of the young Italian soldiers who fought in the First World War, recalled on Wednesday evening (17 February) during the evening that the Morimondo Abbazia Rotary club of president Giuseppe Resnati, with a fundamental contribution from past president Ambrogio Locatelli (bersagliere, officer of the NATO CIOR), organized to celebrate the anniversary of the outbreak of the first war. The speaker of the evening is the historian Paola Chiesa, 36 years old, who for 11 years has passionately dedicated herself to researching the letters written at the front by soldiers at war, from which she has drawn material to write about twenty books, also earning an invitation from the Army General Staff to go to Afghanistan alongside the Italian soldiers on mission. The researcher explained how her passion for war letters was born when in fifth grade she found those that her grandfather wrote from the Albanian front to her grandmother. The emotionality of the language used by the men at the front is moving, just as the analysis of the contents reveals the lifestyle, the culture, but above all the values of the Italian people of the time. What makes them come alive and known are the letters of those men ready to die for their country, who in the letters that Paola Chiesa finds in their Matriculation Sheets preserved in the Military Archives express Love in all its shapes. Love for the girlfriend, for the wife and for the children born and never seen, for the mother, but not only. In their letters, in fact, a deep love for their country and for the whole community shines through, even for the neighbors who lived in the same courtyard. "All the soldiers were afraid of not receiving letters and they always asked their family members for photos - explained the researcher -. Most of them were illiterate and to write home they turned to the military chaplain, who for them was a sort of mother-confidant. The letters sent to their mother were always reassuring, while those to their father or the provost were more realistic and confidential. Today the way of communicating has changed a lot. As I found out in Afghanistan everything is expressed concisely in a text message." In the First World War, however, the soldiers who wrote home reached poetic heights in describing the reality around them. Like the soldier Aliverti Guido, born in 1889, who in 1916, a month before his death, while standing guard at night in the trenches, managed to write beautiful words to his men, describing a starry sky that was almost reassuring when compared to the state of mind of someone who was aware of the possibility of dying at any moment. "We must not interrupt the common historical memory - says the scholar -. Today's young people are not interested in Love of Country. Middle school students are interested in war letters only if they have them physically in front, while those in fifth grade don't believe what they read, they think that the soldiers made it all up. Yet the letters make us understand how they lived and it is beautiful to see the emotion of those who receive the War Merit Crosses, which are awarded to all those who have been at the front for a certain number of days. These things also help us not to forget. And above all it is important to know that our soldiers are the best reflection of Italy abroad."
Silvia Lodi Pasini
